


Planet of the Pearls

by Chromite



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Descriptions of Pearls, Experiments, Figuring Things Out, Focuses more on the Pearls than the Diamonds, Mention of gem abilities, Off-Color Pearls, Organic aliens, Origin of Blue and Yellow Diamond, Reef Planet, Ruins, Survival, mention of Blue Diamond, mention of White Diamond, mention of yellow diamond - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-23
Updated: 2020-01-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:49:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22378993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chromite/pseuds/Chromite
Summary: In a distant, long forgotten part of space, follow this short description on how one forgotten Pearl raises a community of her own and overcomes many hardships to ensure the survival of her community.
Kudos: 7





	Planet of the Pearls

>In a distant sector of space long abandoned by most of Gemkind, there rested a system that had once shown signs of promise, each planet within housing abundant resources for the creation of gems and the construction of spires and technology. Back in this time, White Diamond ruled alone, her abundant radiance alone guiding Gemkind to glory. In her wisdom, she had selected two planets within the system to serve as the incubation sites for two new Diamonds, gems that would match her radiance and help her expand the influence of Gemkind faster, gems that would rule by her side.  
>She also set into motion another project. As she expanded her influence, White had noticed some gems were lacking in motivation. While she could make an example out of some of them and push the others to work harder in fear, she had another method in mind to work in hand with that. The smallest planet of the system was selected to serve as the first of its kind. Instead of being colonized, it would be a new sort of planet. A place dedicated to creating rewards for her most loyal subjects, the ones that performed their duties the best. What better reward than a servant of their own, to do what they wanted in the time in between planetary conquests? Thus the first Reef planet was designed and created by White Diamond's hands.  
>For thousands of years, the first Reef was creating Pearls flawlessly for deserving subjects. The colonization of the solar system was going smoothly, gems were being incubated with great success, grand structures were being built, the organics that existed were being dealt with easily.  
>Then it happened. On the two planets White had selected to incubate two new Diamonds, tremors began to take place, wrecking the structures that were being built, and forcing the other gems that had been incubating out far too early, before any consciousness had taken root within them. The shaking continued to grow more and more violent, cracks formed upon the surfaces of the planets. With one last surge of energy, the two new Diamonds emerged, one glowing a brilliant yellow, the other a darker blue. The explosion of their emergence sent large chunks of the planets they had been incubating in hurling out into space, each piece saturated with the excess energy the Diamonds were exerting.  
>It was those energy infused planet chunks that started causing the problems. Wherever they crashed into a world, the Gems around where they impacted began to contort, their bodies unable to withstand the raw energy being exerted upon them. Eventually, the Gems around the impact sites would crack, and shatter into tiny pieces.  
>Shattering gems weren't the only thing the energy infused chunks did. Organic creatures were naturally drawn to them, and those that were exposed began to rapidly grow and change. They became larger, more deadly, and too much for Gemkind to deal with safely.  
>The entire system had been compromised. No planet was left untouched by the pieces of planets that had been flung out. With the system becoming more deadly by the day, White had no choice. She gathered the two new Diamonds herself, suppressed their powers to move them safely, as well as the surviving gems on the ongoing colonies, and fled from the system, leaving the organics to grow wildly out of control on the planets left behind, the entire system becoming lost to Gemkind.  
>Or, that's what White Diamond thought. In her haste to ensure the safety of the two new Diamonds, she had accidentally forgotten to evacuate the Reef planet that produced Pearls. Saving made-to-order servants wasn't high on her list of priorities, most of the Pearls that had been made had either fled alongside their masters or had already been onboard ships. Yet there was one left behind in the Reef, still in the final parts of being created.  
>While the Reef planet didn't have many organics on it, it still had enough that the piece of Diamond energy infused rock still had an impact on the life that lived there. The organics went out of control, damaging many aspects of the Reef itself and the unfinished structures that had been abandoned. The damage to the Reef affected the mental programming process of the Pearl being created. Instead of being instilled with the usual need to serve and obedience towards a singular master, she was instead left with her own free will, completely unfettered and unable to be commanded by any gem.  
>The process of her creation finished up. The shell that held her Pearl glowed brightly before breaking apart, her gemstone floating into the air as she took form. With no master to dictate how she looked physically, she was left with nothing but the default to go off of for her looks. Her colors, on the other hand, had already been set in. Her pale white skin was a stark contrast to the bright blue leotard she wore on her body, transparent blue lace lining her shoulders and waist. A small opening was cut at her naval to allow her gem to take in the light. Her two light blue eyes stared at the world around her as she brushed her long strait grey hair out of her eyes. The Pearl that had once been intended as a gift looked around in awe.  
>With nobody to guide her, the Pearl was left to her own devices as she wandered through the Reef. Looking around her, she could tell the building had seen better days. Chunks from the ceiling were resting on the floor, cracks were forming in the windows in some spots while other windows were completely broken, accessories were thrown all over the place, some of them completely broken, and the machines responsible for creating new Pearls were all damaged.  
>She didn't know what she wanted to do for sure, but she did know one thing: She didn't want to be alone. She wasn't meant to be alone. She needed others around her, to talk to and to help her out if she was ever going to get the place she had formed in back up to peak condition.  
>What followed for the Pearl was a lot of trial and error as she attempted to fix the machines within the Reef. While she had no mechanical knowledge to go off of, she was fairly certain wires weren't suppose to be exposed and sparking. With an abundance of materials to work with, she started experimenting with different configurations of wires and parts, as well as different materials that went into the other Pearls themselves.  
>The experiments of the Pearl were met with widely varied results. The first Pearl she made was grey and a complete disaster, having no arms on her body, four legs under her, her hair was twice the length of her body which made it a tripping hazard. If it wasn't for her gem being located on top of her head, the grey Pearl would have cracked herself for sure with how much she tripped to start out. But as she got used to herself and her multitude of legs, the grey Pearl discovered she could control how her hair moved around her. She was eventually able to use her hair as replacements for the arms she never formed with.  
>With the help of the grey Pearl, who the white Pearl nicknamed Tangles, the pair worked on the machines again and produced a new Pearl to assist them. This Pearl was yellow in hue, her gem resting where her right arm should have been. While she had the right number of legs, she had also ended up with large spikes growing from her back, and her teeth were sharper and more pointed than the other two Pearls.  
>Despite her lack of an arm, the yellow Pearl had a natural knack for combat. She was able to curl up and launch the spikes on her back at any organics that drew too close, and the gem where her right arm should have been frequently formed bright yellow constructs that mimicked certain parts of the anatomy of the organics she fought, such as their claws, pincers, stingers, and even mimicking entire head structures in some cases. She would eventually settle on one particular construct to use, a giant blade like appendage that she had seen and knocked off of one of the larger organics that had come too close to the Reef. It was this construct that earned her the nickname Slasher.  
>The original Pearl, now called Prime by the other two, continued her efforts with Tangles to fix the machines and produce more Pearls in the centuries to come. Many distinctive Pearls were created as a result, a light blue Pearl with a multitude of tentacles for her limbs instead of arms and legs named Kracken, a dark green Pearl with no legs and three eyes, but a wondrous affinity for the organic plant life on the planet who became known as Dryad, a vibrant red Pearl who had a knack for being in the right place at the right time to help others when they needed it the most despite her lack of eyes became known as Fortune, and a blazing orange Pearl who had wound up with an extra head and two extra arms on her body, both sides with minds of their own.  
>The conjoined orange Pearls would become known as the Salvage Twins, the left side had a knack for repurposing things that seemed broken beyond repair and became known as Engie, while the right side had a flair for spotting rarer materials during excavation missions among the rubble, especially the materials needed to make more Pearls, earning her the nickname Jeweler.  
>Eventually, Prime and the others managed to get the machine running almost exactly as it had before, intentionally leaving the part that instilled servitude broken. They had no interest in creating slaves for themselves, instead preferring to create free minded individuals like themselves, to further help the grown of their community. Each Pearl created was radically different in mind because of this, each one specializing in one area, be it combat, technology, building, salvaging, or just being there when an extra hand was needed.  
>The Pearls, under the leadership of Prime, Tangles, Dryad, and Fortune, prospered on the planet. There were still the occasional scrapes with the local organics rampaging too close to their home in the Reef, but armed with accessories that had been repurposed into weapons and simple weapons they had created themselves, such as spears and bows, combined with the natural fighting abilities of Pearls like Slasher, they were able to keep the organics away and keep their home safe.  
>Despite their safety however, the Pearls were growing more nervous. Each time the organics attacked, they were a little larger, a little harder to drive back, came in larger packs, and more of their fellow Pearls ended up cracked or broken. While the Reef itself could fixed the cracked Pearls and produce new ones, the losses still hit them hard. They knew there would come a time where they'd be unable to fight off the organics if they kept growing larger and more numerous. They had to find a way to leave the planet and find a more peaceful place to call home.  
>Prime's mind turned to the ruins on the planet. There were two sites on the world where the Pearls rarely ventured, ruins that looked different from the other structures present. They had never explored those two sites much, the organics on the planet seemed to favor them for their nests, and the leader Pearls didn't want to provoke the organics more than what was needed. However, they knew they had to do something different if they were to survive, knew they had to find a way off the planet itself, and they knew the ruins they had explored had been a great source of technology, providing them with parts for the machines in the Reef. They had little choice anymore. They had to know what was in the last two ruin sites.  
>Volunteer Pearls were called up to go on this expedition, led by Slasher. Prime had a special line of new Pearls made to accompany the volunteers, Pearls tweaked to be intentionally great at combat instead of being allowed to choose their own roles. Fortune, Dryad, and Tangles weren't happy with the thought of creating Pearls that would effectively be sacrifices for the betterment of the rest of the Pearls on the planet, and Prime herself hated it as well, but they had little other choice. They all knew time was running out, and if making Pearls to be sacrificed was the only way to survive, they would have to do it. They were determined to make sure they succeeded, and that they'd honor the ones that fell if they got off the planet.  
>The army of soldier Pearls marched on the closer of the two ruins, weapons in hand, Slasher at the forefront with her hard light projected blade arm on her right and a spear clutched in her left hand. Weapons in hand, they charged the ruins, and engaged the organics within.  
>The battle was long and hard. The blood of the organics saturated the ground within the ruins as they bled out. Dust started to choke the air as Pearls were broken all around the impromptu battlefield, their shards clattering to the ground, quickly being ground into fine dust under the feet of the large organics and other Pearls alike as they clashed, scurried, screamed, and screeched.  
>Of the five hundred seventy-two Pearls that had gone to the ruins, only two hundred twenty-seven survived. Slasher herself looked upon the carnage in sorrow, shaking her head as she buried the shards of her fellow Pearls that were still large enough to be buried. Almost all of the Pearls that had been created just to fight had been destroyed, leaving the volunteers and the survivors to wonder if this had really been the best way to handle things.  
>Still, what was done was done. They couldn't let the sacrifice of the Pearls be in vain. The survivors scoured the ruins for anything new they could use, taking every small scrap of technology they could find, stashing it within their gems for easier transport.  
>One of the Pearls made a startling discovery. Deep in the bowels of the ruins, she had discovered a strange looking device, large and heavy, that had been partially buried within the soil. With the help of a few others, they dug the device out with their bare hands. It was a long and cylindrical shape, and it looked like it was meant to burn something within. Still, it was something they had never seen, so working together, they carried it out of the ruins back to the Reef.  
>Back at the Reef, it was discovered that the cylindrical object the Pearls had unearthed was indeed something intended to burn materials. However, while it burned materials, it also created an incredible flame at the end of it, which in turned created a force of propulsion previously unseen by the Pearls. The prospect of the propulsion properties excited the best minds among them, each of them working frantically on calculations and ideas.  
>The results were conclusive among the smartest Pearls. With enough of the cylindrical devices and a sturdy enough structure, they could escape the planet. The sacrifice of the Pearls had given them exactly what they needed to survive. They quickly got to work on prototypes for new cylindrical propulsion devices, which they'd later start calling thrusters, and a hull to fixate the thrusters within. After many decades of trial and error with smaller prototypes, they finally came up with a design and hull density they believed would work. All that was left was to make a larger version and hope for the best.  
>The Pearls worked around the clock to build the larger version of the vessel their best thinkers had come up with. The organics on the world were beginning to attack more frequently and more aggressively than before, almost like they sensed what the Pearls were up to, or in retaliation to a major nest of theirs being wiped out. Whatever the case, the Pearls all let out a collected sigh of relief when the large vessel was completed.  
>The Pearls wasted no time loading up the important machines they'd need on a new world, the systems needed to repair Pearls and create new ones, as well as the resource refiners and as many materials as they could manage to store and still have space for the passengers. At the end of one of the attacks by the organics, the Pearls hastily loaded onto the vessel, and waited anxiously.  
>Prime herself took the helm, and initiated the sequence to launch the vessel into space. The whole thing shook violently as the thrusters flared to life. Fear shot through the Pearls aboard, some having regrets and reservations about the whole thing. But it was too late to back out now. The organics below were already regrouping to try and swarm the Reef. If they were going to escape, it had to be now, or they'd be overrun.  
>The ship lifted off the ground as the organics arrived at the Reef, some of their bodies being instantly incinerated by the flames from the engine. The vessel stopped shaking as it moved further off the ground and picked up speed, and soon, the ship was off the planet and out in space.  
>As the Pearls looked out their glass windows and saw the vast openness of space around them, they let out cheers of relief and triumph. They had escaped the hostile world. The sacrifices that had been made were not in vain. They were free to explore the stars, to find a new world to settle on and make a better life for themselves, a more peaceful life. They were excited to see what was in store for them.

**Author's Note:**

> I really like creating new Pearls, okay? Seeing the Reef in canon only confirms that, if they really wanted to, they could create any sort of strange Pearl servant they wanted.


End file.
